thieves of joy
by Adreus
Summary: kaito, yuma, & shark flashfic of varying pairings — 12: Look, I know you're new to the whole 'being friends with Yuma' thing, but even you should know we're not about to stop him.
1. eighteen (YKR)

A stolenshipping (Kaito, Yuma, Shark) collection, because, as a friend put it, "They stole his pendant and he stole their hearts." Pairings or gen of the three, in any way, shape, or form. You'll notice the chapter names have who's in what fic in parenthesis, with "slash" denoting a fic's romantic intention.

It's marked complete, but only because every fic is complete on its own. Expect updates!

* * *

_thieves of joy_

oo1

* * *

Kaito is eighteen.

He's eighteen, almost nineteen, and this is something that he knows and is only ever vaguely aware of, but Yuma decides to inform him of it as fact one day anyway. It's when he's walking out of the candy store that Yuma spots him, when he's ready to launch into the sky with Oribtal on his back. He's tucking the little paper bag of caramels into his jacket when the loud, signature shout resounds, a blustering, "Oy, Kaito!", and Kaito stops and turns around, chewing absently on the piece he just popped into his mouth (mostly they're for Haruto, but, okay, so maybe he's been getting a serious addiction to the things himself).

"Yuma," he says in place of a hello, though Yuma isn't alone—he's flanked on either side by Shark or Kotori, and though Astral isn't anywhere to be seen, Kaito can feel the unearthly presence emanating from the key around Yuma's neck as it swings against the boy running toward Kaito. Kotori is at a jog just behind him, telling him to slow down, honestly, but Shark is apparently too cool for the annoying activity that is running, so he walks at a leisurely pace behind them, one palm up and a smirk at the corner of his mouth in form of greeting.

Yuma reaches him quickly, but he's out of breath and bent over, his hands on his knees as recollects himself and the others catch up. "Hey, Kaito," he says then, and he straightens up and fixes him with his big, bright eyes and his baby face, and that's when Yuma says, as though this is new, as though this changes everything, as though this is something that Kaito knows nothing about it, "You—you're eighteen."

Kaito blinks, nonplussed. Shark closes his eyes and sucks in his lips. Kotori sighs loudly and slaps a hand to her forehead, muttering a decisive, "Yuma...", and this is obviously a conversation they've had before.

"…Yes," Kaito says, because that he is, and he doesn't really know if there's anything more to be added.

"That's why you don't come to school!" Yuma goes on to explain excitedly, and his eyes are bright, like everything's coming together to him for the first time, and Kaito looks at him blankly, wonders how it is he could explain that he's never gone to school in his life, been taught everything he knows from various tutors and some things from Chris, and that whatever Yuma thinks he knows about him is apparently drastically different from the truth. He opens his mouth to say something, but what comes out is a clear, pronounced, and articulate, "Uh," so he looks to Orbital, who look to him and beeps a few and shrugs.

"Yuma," Kaito says warily, "How old did you think I was?"

Yuma makes his thinking face, comical and so very _him_, energetic and obvious that Yuma's never actually thought about this before, just decided that Kaito is Yuma's age because Yuma is Yuma's age—and Kaito has to bite back a soft smile that tries to make its way onto his face. See, Kaito knows how old Yuma is—he read his stats and found any information that he could about him way back when Kaito first found out about Astral—so he knows his name knows his birthday knows his blood type, and he's totally unsurprised that Yuma didn't do the same for him, but there's still something refreshing in Yuma being totally and completely himself.

Finally, Yuma rubs his hands through his hair and decides, "H-Hey! I don't know! I just didn't think you were _that_ old, because—well, because—"

And he doesn't have a because, and at that Kotori puts her hands on her hips and cries out a disgruntled, "_Yuma_!", and Kaito just kind of watches the exchange before he turns to Shark, who raises an eyebrow in question.

"You knew, didn't you?" Kaito asks, because, honestly, he's kind of curious if any of these kids even bothered reading up about their competition for dueling, for Numbers, for the championship.

Shark shrugs his assurance that he did, says, "Does it matter?"

And, well, no, he supposes it doesn't—he never really thought about it before Yuma brought it up, anyway.


	2. just keep swimming (YR)

originally published 11 march 2012

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_oo2_

* * *

"It's not that funny," he tries miserably, and collapses on the bench, closes his eyes, massages his temples. Yuma's still rolling around in the dirt, laughing his lungs away and very nearly choking to death; Shark's eyes snap violently open at the first choke, but Yuma laughs off even his own misfortune and Shark sighs and crosses his arms against his chest and wearily watches the boy on the ground.

It takes an extreme amount of time, but Yuma finally manages to pick himself up—and at the sight of Shark's pout he's nearly set off again, but he shakes his head, bites his lip to seal his mouth shut, his cheeks threatening to burst open at any moment.

"...Yuma..."

And before Shark can say anything in his defense, or really say anything at all, Yuma lets the laughter stumble out again—though he does manage to stay standing this time—and Shark does his best to not turn red when he turns his head away and growls.

"Sorry, Shark," Yuma begins to apologize, catching his breath, and he's _trying _to school his expression back into some form of understanding, but it's really not working at all because he's Yuma. "I didn't know you were being for real!"

Shark mumbles something incomprehensibly and Yuma scrunches his face together, says loudly, "Huh?"

And, yeah, blood's rushing into Shark's face, and he's absolutely mortified, but he clears his throat and he says, "I only told you 'cause you told me _your_ secret."

"Oh," says Yuma, and that's all he says; there's silence, as he seems to think something over, and Shark's embarrassment just sort of hangs in the air and it's totally unfair because he's _never_ embarrassed around anyone else; his emotions tend to be made of arrogance or made of anger, tend to be _I am Cool _or _You are Not Cool_, and with Yuma that's thrown out the window and it all comes down to_ why does every single thing you do make me so _confused?

Then Yuma starts to cackle again.

"Okay," says Shark, getting up from the bench, "I'm leaving."

"No, wait!" Yuma grabs his arm to stop him, apologizes. "Really, I'm sorry, 'couldn't help it. It's really funny."

"_I _don't think so," Shark mutters, and all of a sudden he realizes he's being pulled in another direction, and he adds, "Uh, Yuma, where are we going?"

"To the pool!" Yuma responds enthusiastically, dragging Shark by the arm. "I'm gonna teach you how to swim!"


	3. hey, i just met you (YK)

originally posted 5 april 2012

**Notes:** The idea for this is pretty much exactly from a one sentence meme done by kamishiros at tumblr? Just... 1600 words longer? fjklash

Takes place decidedly earlier in canon than the other fics—a little bit after Neo Galaxy-Eyes's first appearance.

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_oo3_

* * *

It's three in the morning and Kaito returned about five seconds ago, but he's tired and worn and hasn't slept in days so before he knows it he's dropped on the mattress and conked out. It's a dreamless sleep of comfortable nothingness, a desperately needed vacation into the darkness after far too long in the sunlight. But it only lasts about a minute; suddenly it's four in the afternoon and Oribtal 7 won't shut up about a call on Kaito's D-Pad, and the robot's too loud and too obnoxious and he's had twelve hours of sleep anyway, so going back to the lulls of dreamlessness doesn't look particularly possible.

"Can it," Kaito growls as he sits up, and his voice is hoarse and husky with the larynx's overdue rest, but it's also weak and lame with the emotional drain, and his eyes feel worn and his skin feels foreign and as Orbital 7 fearfully backs away, the memories slam into his soul, crush his spine and his heart and he shuts his eyes tight, thinking that maybe when he opens them the eyes staring back at him will be a little more human, a little more storgic. They're not, of course; he hasn't seen his brother in days, hasn't been allowed even the scrappiest piece of information about the only thing in the whole damn world that he cares about. Mostly he's spent the last week or so worrying, or worrying, or trying to keep himself busy with mundane tasks so that he can't worry anymore. Sleep is something he only manages when he's too exhausted to stay awake. Dueling is something he doesn't even try; the first time he did, a warmth snaked up his spine and into his chest and it stayed there, like a shield over his heart, there to protect him from danger and keep it safe, but all it did was be so distracting that he nearly lost to a stranger.

He ends up spending time obsessively scouring the city in hopes of finding something to _do_; maybe he'll track down Numbers holders, maybe he'll create the perfect map of the place in his mind, no matter what it is, Kaito ends up more often than not in the skies of Heartland, finds himself memorizing every nook and cranny of the endless wasteland they call a city. He comes to note for the first time that the city is instrumentally huge; not only compared to the place he called home, but compared to most other cities, Heartland stretches on and on in its vibrant colors and houses millions of people, and not for one moment does Kaito consider this lifestyle a good one. It's loud and obnoxious and everyone is in everyone else's business and Kaito, for all the worth of the soul that isn't his, wants nothing more than to leave the place behind and never hear another car horn again.

Presently, he glares at Orbital 7, runs a hand through his hair—untamed and tangled and messy and dirty but who even cares?—and the robot takes that as his cue to come at attention. "Y-Yes, Kaito-sama?"

"Who was it?" Kaito asks.

"H-huh?"

Kaito's voice is angrier and his glare more intense. "The call."

Orbital 7 jumps and squeaks a bit at the mention of the call, and Kaito's watching expectantly, his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. The robot scrambles around with itself for a moment and does some computations, and seriously, aren't these things supposed to be _fast _at these kind of things?, when Orbital 7 stands at the ready and begins, all official-like, "A reading of your missed calls while you were asleep, Kaito-sama: An unknown number. A telemarketer. Someone interested in your participation in the World Duel Carnival." He pauses in his reading, looks up nervously. Then he swallows, or whatever the machine equivalent of that is, and he speaks, "Tsukumo Yuma. Followed by Tsukumo Yuma. Again, Tsukumo Yuma. Proceeded by Tsu—"

"_Yuma_?"

"Y-Yes, Kaito-sama," begins Orbital 7, and he's about to remind Kaito that he had his number put into Yuma's D-Pad, about to explain that the calls were decently spaced out and that Kaito stirred to shout at Orbital about them at some point, but just as he's about to say that, there's an alert that someone's calling, and Orbital 7 nearly drops the D-Pad and pees out oil when he sees the name.

"Ts-Tsukumo Yuma!" he cries, and Kaito snatches the device and answers the call.

Yuma's standing in a park somewhere, staring curiously up at Kaito, and a second later his face is elated and he's excited and pumping his fists. "Yes! Kaito answered!" The boy shouts out in victory to someone nearby, and Kaito must really look like a zombie, because Yuma frowns a moment later, squints at the screen of his D-Pad. "...That is you, right?"

"I told you not to call me," Kaito says in form of greeting.

Yuma doesn't even have the decency to look apologetic, which, not very surprising.

"Kaito!" Yuma shouts, as though modern technology is too inept to pick up his voice at a normal volume, "My friends are going to the amusement park today, and we have an extra ticket because Shark won't come with us!" He's fired up, energy returned to him despite the recent events, and Kaito doesn't understand this kid, doesn't think he ever will, and it's _obnoxious _how upbeat he can be, even after—_especially _after—

"No," says Kaito. And he hangs up. "Stop _calling _me," he tells the D-Pad a moment later, and thinks that maybe he should've said that before he'd hung up, but then thinks that it wouldn't even matter, because Yuma's going to call him again anyway, and Kaito's going to have to refuse him again, and the guy still won't stop bugging him, and giving him the number was a mista—

He forces his train of thought to a screeching halt. _No_. It wasn't a mistake.

The screen lights up with Yuma's number before the alert goes off, and Kaito accepts it, sighs. "Yuma."

"Kai_to_," Yuma whines, and honestly, he's getting too friendly with him; it started with the blimp and saving the kid's girlfriend and it's only expanded since then, and they're _not_ friends, and Yuma needs to realize that, even if maybe now it's only because Kaito has no room for friends. He has no room for _himself_. The only slice of his soul left to savor belongs to Haruto, and he's not compromising that with anything.

"I'm not going to the amusement park with you. Stop calling." He hesitates before hanging up this time, looks at the window outside, at his messy mattress, anywhere but at Yuma, when he decides to add, slowly: "Haruto is... safe. That was the extent of our communication."

"But—"

"_No_."

"Fine!" says Yuma. "We'll have fun without you and we're totally going to win the duel tournament here and I'm going to go on all the rides and eat all the cotton candy I can—"

And Kaito breaks the connection.

It takes about five seconds before he gets another call, and this one he lets go of, tossing the D-Pad on the bed and heading to the bathroom, because it's about time to make himself look presentable. He takes a shower and that means he finally washes his hair, and there's this layer of dirt and sticky sweat that was all over his face and it looks so much... paler, now, has he always been like that, so white and afraid under layers of steel? Or is it the lack of sunlight that's been doing it to him, since he only really goes out at night lately?

He swears the sunlight isn't something he's allergic to, it's just his circadian rhythm. When he first came here he worked at night, and then the daytime started reminding him of cicadas and butterflies and uncut grass, and it was just _better_ that way.

Yuma's much the opposite in that respect.

He finds himself whistling a familiar tune when he comes back to the room to dress himself, notices the flashing light that indicates he's got a notification. He knows that it's Yuma, that it's useless and junk, but he checks it anyway, and sure enough it's a recorded message. He lets it play and listens to Yuma tell him about how much fun they're going to be having at the amusement park without Kaito, how they're going out to karaoke afterward and then they're going to try out that new capsule monsters game and he's not invited and Astral says he's totally missing out.

"Tell him to stop calling me," Kaito commands Orbital 7, who'd gone to charge his battery in the corner for fear that all his fear was draining his power supply.

"R-Right away, Kaito-sama!"

And a text is written, rewritten, and sent.

(Yuma still calls him some time around midnight, wondering if he's alright).

("Stop calling me," Kaito mutters under his breath, but Yuma doesn't hear).

("I just want to know," and there's a softness to Yuma's voice, a melange of a depression and a sincerity).

(Silence.)

("...No.")

(And he hangs up.)


	4. princely (YK)

originally posted april 2012

**Notes: **weee I hope you can learn to appreciate that my bias is photonshipping, whooooops.

* * *

_princely_

* * *

Dreams are littered with possibilities and answers and they tend to surpass all the problems that come with being human; in oneiric fantasies it's possible to be completely selfless or completely selfish, it's possible to have all the answers, it's possible to lose all your life points twice over and still win the duel. In dreams, the world belongs to the dreamer.

Haruto, Kaito believes, has always lived in a dream.

It's not a perfect place; there's no utopia, there's no end to Haruto's suffering or his pain or even the odd shifts in his personality. But Haruto's world is one that transcends reality, transcends logic and time and space, where they're happy and the world makes sense again and there's grass and sunlight that doesn't make him scowl. Haruto is too pure and too perfect for this place to handle; so he lives half here and he lives half there, and Kaito does his best to take care of the amount of his brother that he completely understands.

Haruto becomes very used to being his brother's precious prince. Sometimes it's hard to tell which brother is in charge of which.

"Niisan," Haruto speaks excitedly, taking his brother's hand, and he's got that smile, and seeing it again almost makes Kaito cry, "Niisan!"

"Haruto?"**—**and Kaito is guided to a figure nearby, and Kaito's hand is out of Haruto's and in someone else's, and there's Yuma, and, um, okay, so Kaito looks to Haruto for an answer.

"Friends!"

"—Ah, I don't really..."

But he's cut off by the frown, and he sighs, and then Kaito tries to hide his smile, and what the prince requests, he receives.


	5. the problem with themed parties (YKR)

**Notes: **i have a friend and we have dumb headcanons

* * *

_thieves of joy_

oo5

* * *

Ryoga's birthday only _really _kicks off sometime after the first stuffed shark soars through the air, four pairs of eyes watching its trajectory, and lands with a muffled squeak in Kaito's hair, neatly cushioned between the blonde and the green. Appropriately, it's a sky blue creature, terribly cute with its enormous grin and felt teeth, and it still has the tag tied around its fin that reads in small, squiggly handwriting that could only belong to Yuma's class president: _to ryoga kamishiro-san. i hope, in the end, you have a good birthday!_

Kaito, who up until now stood in solidarity while Ryoga collected his various shark-themed presents from all of Yuma's pre-teen friends (and one from Haruto, which Kaito solemnly delivered because Haruto himself couldn't come) with an only slightly grateful face, looks up, blinks once in curiosity at the thing, then shakes his head a little in the hopes that it will leave him—to no avail. The stuffed animal remains firmly planted in the eighteen-year-old's hair, grinning adorably at Astral as the alien floats beside Kaito, examining it with interest.

"Oy, Kaito," Yuma says then, pointing demonstratively at his own pink locks and looking up from his seat next to the pile of gifts, "You've got a little something in your…"

Kaito sighs, and slumping his shoulders falls gracefully into a chair as the weariness from the day of standing around at a birthday party with middle schoolers begins to take a toll on him. He reaches up and retrieves the shark, which makes another _squeak _noise at his touch; then Kaito stares at it, at its stupid, cutesy grin, and wonders faintly, "Ryoga, _how_ old are you now?"

"Like I'll hear that from _you_," Ryoga comments dryly, and Kaito takes in the point with a shrug, because, you know what, he just spent the past two hours surrounded by Yuma's friends—they're not even Ryoga's friends, honestly, because as far as Kaito can see Ryoga doesn't _have _those, but Yuma insists that any friends of his are friends of theirs—so Kaito couldn't give less of a shit about his adult dignity or whatever (besides—Kaito spends a majority of his time with his little brother, so Ryoga can _shut up_, because Haruto loves ESPer Robin and so Kaito took him to see the movie, what's Ryoga's excuse?)

"Hey," Kaito replies, and he smirks a little at what he counts as a personal victory. "Just saying." He throws the shark back at Ryoga, who stumbles a little in his attempt to catch it, but immediately regains his usual composure with a _hmph_ and deposits the thing in his pile of gifts, next to the glow-in-the-dark shark lamp (from Tetsuo) , the vaguely fish-shaped snacks (from Cathy), a pair of socks that look like a shark biting on your ankles (from Kotori), and a set of gaudy silver jewelry (from Rio, with regards to "the biggest, strongest _man _in my life"). The rest of the pile is a number of assorted plush toys, the largest and squishiest of which was presented to him by Yuma, who exceeded the others even farther by customizing it—the thing's even got Ryoga's _hair_.

"This," Ryoga says, kicking the Ryoga-shark lightly with his foot, "is all Rio's fault."

And it is—it was Rio's fault that the party was organized, Rio's fault that Yuma and Kaito know Ryoga's birthday at all; it was she who mentioned slyly to Yuma after lunch one day that her birthday was coming up, as though she knew that Astral was there and would ask if that meant Ryoga's birthday was coming up, too, and it was she who mentioned that she thought Ryoga could use some cheering up—he could so _not_—and it was she who'd gone ahead and said, _why, yes, Yuma, a surprise birthday party is a great idea, I think he'd quite like that, _knowing perfectly well that Ryoga did _not _want a party and most certainly didn't want one from _Yuma_.

Presently Yuma frowns. "Huh? What do you mean?"

Ryoga spreads out his arms and looks around them at Yuma's house, at the balloons all around them, at the banner above the doorway that reads the painful pun of _Juu-Go, Shark! _with a little cartoon giving a thumbs up, at the streamers and the confetti and what's left of the cake on Yuma's dining table, and—worst of all—the cards and presents the boys are currently standing around. Kaito raises an eyebrow, like, _yeah okay, sure, cool guy, you were having a decent enough time earlier_, and Yuma cocks his head to the side, confused.

"Hm? What're you getting at, Shark?" The corners of his mouth turn up as _he _looks around the room again, and he laughs a little, says, "Heeeeey, you can't tell me that you weren't having fun at the party, everyone was here!", as though 'everyone' equates to 'fun', and Ryoga shakes his head.

"_No_, that's not what I meant," he says, and he's getting frustrated, and Kaito's watching him with this _knowing _look and Ryoga might actually be turning red, what even _is _all of this, who out there hates him? Yuma's confused, and he's about to open his mouth to voice just as much when Ryoga tacks on tactlessly, "It's all of these…"

And he trails off, staring at the pile of presents and their unified theme.

"Sharks?" supplies Kaito.

Yuma grins, like all of the presents are clever, and he's the clever mastermind behind them all, and Ryoga struggles in his attempts to form a sentence, lest Yuma be offended; he starts and then he stops, starts and then he stops, and he just kind of gives up and sighs, drops to his knees in front of the Ryoga-shark, and pokes it experimentally. There's really nothing left for him to say about this, is there? He'll just have to take all of his presents home, load all the cutsie sharks onto his motorcycle and ride them all the way to his house, and then he'll have to unload them and take up the bundle in his arms and then Rio will be there as he struggles up the stairs and she'll just _laugh _at him, and he can't say he _didn't _enjoy the party, really, he can't, which is annoying because he tried really, _really _hard not to.

As the room is filled with silence and Kaito and Yuma watching him, Ryoga plays with the hair on the Ryoga-shark, in his head tries not to panic or rage too hard at what Rio will do once she has the freedom of not offending anyone around them except for him, and wonders idly if his hair really looks like that from the back. Then he turns the thing around and it's really soft in his hands, one of those polyester bead pillows that you just want to squish all day for the feeling of it, and it's grinning at him all dumbly, and Ryoga holds it up at eye-level, stares at it, and, without really paying attention to what he's doing, tries to make the same face. Yuma's standing behind him, so he doesn't see, but Kaito's got a clear view and the older boy bites down on his lips to prevent himself from laughing out loud. Ryoga's face instantly turns to a glare and he throws the thing at Kaito's face, knocking him back into the chair with an _oomph _and whipping the look clean off his face.

Then Kaito gets up. For a moment looks bewildered.

Then he utters a single, powerful word, locking narrowed eyes with Ryoga: "_Duel_."

It's swift and immediate as both of them grab two shark plushies each and launch them at each other, ducking for cover behind furniture and a surprised Yuma, grabbing more on their way behind their shelters. Kaito grabs small ammunition and throws them strategically, one from this side and one from that, and Ryoga collects them as they fall to the ground and sends them hurling back. It's only a few seconds before Yuma refuses to be Ryoga's shield any longer and yells, loudly, "_Hey!_" for both of them to stop, and they do for a moment, looking up at him with their stupor broken—and then Yuma smacks Ryoga over the head with the Ryoga-shark, grabs two little sharks from the ground, and dives under the table, sending his fire behind them.

What follows is an all-out war.

Sharks fly everywhere, from here to there and back again, barely nearing their targets because they're caught in the process and redirected. Some float straight through Astral and others attack light fixtures, some land in hair and are immediately extracted for reuse, some hit Ryoga on his eyes and take him out of commission for a precious few seconds. Alliances are formed—Kaito and Yuma storm Ryoga once he's down and smack him with the largest weaponry until the fallen comes back with shove to Kaito, then turns on Yuma; the two grapple for the Ryoga-shark until Kaito comes back with more of the smaller ones to the back of Ryoga's head, and then Shark and Yuma look to each other and nod and immediately pounce on Kaito, and it goes on like that, until finally Ryoga manages to wriggle out the Ryoga-shark out of Yuma's grasp, tosses it to Kaito, and nods—and the two of them storm Yuma in the middle of the room, tackling him to the ground on top of squeakingbaby sharks, and then maybe there's tickling, and maybe there's laughing and grinning and so maybe it's getting a little hard to breathe because of it, and maybe they're all really tired when they land on and around each other so they really can't move—or, hey, maybe they're just comfortable.


	6. yeah, you got me (YKR)

**Notes: **About... 11,000 words of my NaNoWriMo this year was of these dorks, so I hope you'll enjoy some of it, at least. Do review if you can!

* * *

_thieves of joy_

oo6

* * *

What's a problem is that they're starting to talk like each other, to think like each other. Like, sometimes Kaito will be trying to tell Haruto something and the word that wants to burst through his mouth instead of a gentle _ganbatte_ is a soft, _kattobingu daze, kimi_, which sounds strange in his voice but comforting, and it's okay because Kaito, somehow, is guarding the word and it feels safe in his mouth. Haruto will laugh and Kaito will flush a little because oooooh my god, he totally didn't say that, nope, but, okay, yeah, it's a thing that's happening, there's no way it's not, and he guesses… well, he guesses it's okay, because Haruto is happy when he does it because Niisan finally has friends, Niisan might even have _boy_friends, and as embarrassing as it is for your eight-year-old brother to be the encouraging one and the one squeezing your hand and grinning all silly because you have a relationship or two—it's nice, too.

But that's not the end of it, of course, because it's not just Yuma that's rubbing off of him, not just _kattobingu_ that's slithering its way into a warm, comfortable niche in his head, but it's Ryoga, too, Ryoga and his infuriating little habits, the way he clicks his tongue when he thinks something's stupid, the way he crosses his arms and brings them to his chest when he doesn't want to respond to something seriously. At first it starts as a joke: When it's just the three of them and Ryoga does one of those things, Kaito likes to make fun of him, but then it twists over and the joke's on him because soon Kaito's doing it himself, completely unironically. And these little things keep stacking up—Kaito just _says _certain things certain ways, because that's how he's always said them or that's how Chris pronounced that word or god, shut up, Haruto used to call it that when he was little and I'm going to punch you in the face, and then—then Yuma starts calling milk the baby word, or Ryoga starts to pronounce it like that, too, and it's just… well, it's a mess.

And it doesn't end there, either, because it's not just people you're so intimate with that you take habits from. Ryoga and Rio, it turns out, shared a room before her hospitalization, and it's only right now that she's moving into her own, and so Ryoga's not spending every single moment at home with her, but he's spending a lot of time with her again and it makes him stupid and happy and some of her habits come off on him and they come off on Yuma and they come off on Kaito. The way she stands, the way she raises her eyebrows when someone's done something stupid; the way she smirks, the way she holds her hand while she's dueling. Everything goes in circles, round and round and round, and the only thing that stays kind of their own is laughter, but that's okay, because they share that with each other, too.


	7. i could (YK, slash)

originally written 18 january 2013; kaito/yuma

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_oo7_

* * *

—_Shit_.

It's 3AM and Kaito should _really_ be asleep, but he's just kind of been staring out the window thinking instead—because sometimes thinking is just obscenely hard to turn off—and Haruto's nestled against him where he fell asleep hours ago, his breath rhythmic and comforting, and the only thing Kaito can really think is _shit_.

He can't retrace his thought process exactly—it probably went somewhere from Haruto to brothers to Chris, from Chris to siblings to twins to Ryoga, except the train took multiple detours and stopped at multiple stations along the way, and somewhere along the line it found itself delayed at the Tsukumo household, where he's held up now, the reason he's groaning and clenching his teeth and closing his eyes but then snapping them open again, because the visions he gets are exactly the _opposite _of what he wants, because somehow thoughts of brothers and friends have begun to collide and—

He could kiss Yuma, he realizes.

He could kiss Yuma the way he could've kissed Chris, except with Yuma it's present, and maybe it's a little different, but there's still that something that stirs in his chest and he has to swallow and try to calm himself down and Haruto moves a little in his sleep and Kaito nearly jumps, like he's afraid his younger brother can hear his thoughts, like—

_Shit_, he thinks. And that's pretty much it.


	8. we'll work on it (YK, slash)

originally written 12 january 2013; kaito/yuma

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_oo8_

* * *

Yuma giggles.

Like, they're on a date or whatever and Kaito doesn't really know where to go from where they are but he does know he wants to kiss Yuma, and isn't that what boyfriends do, so when it gets quiet he leans in a little and does it, slowly and carefully like_ is this okay?_, and at first Yuma's eyes are a little wide at the idea so Kaito squeezes his shut and goes for it, just puts his lips on his.

And Yuma, from what Kaito can tell, smiles. And Kaito cheats and he peeks and this is okay after all, so he kisses Yuma again, a little longer, and then Yuma—_Yuma_—well, he giggles.

"H-hey," Kaito says, drawing back, his cheeks flushed and his heart fumbling, "what's so funny?"

"Nothing!" Yuma insists, but then he stifles a fit of giggles into his palm, and Kaito looks positively hurt.

"I—" Kaito starts, but then he stops and looks down, mumbles, "Sorry. If you didn't want me to—"

"No, no, it's not that!" Yuma insists, and Kaito folds his arms to his chest and looks at Yuma nonplussed, waiting for an answer, and maybe-sorta-not really-okay _fine_ he's pouting. Yuma waves his arms frantically trying to dissolve the atmosphere building up. "Look, I liked it! I liked it a lot!"—he's trying not to laugh again—"It's just that…"—again—"It's just that, well, that was my first time kissing anyone, and it's—"

"—Oh," says Kaito, cutting him off, and then he blinks. And he repeats, standing up now, "Oh."

Yuma watches him. "Kaito?"

"I'll be… I'll see you around, Yuma," Kaito murmurs, careful not to make eye contact, and as Yuma watches him in bewilderment, calling out his name, Kaito leaves, walks away without looking back. Stares dazedly at his hands, reminds himself that Yuma is thirteen and there are feelings that Kaito knows that Yuma does not yet, that there are things that Kaito feels that Yuma's barely familiar with, and when Kaito gets home he gives his greetings to his brother but says nothing else, just walks into his room with a blank stare, collapses on the couch, and drags his hands down his face.

"I kissed a thirteen-year-old today," he mutters to the ceiling, and he groans.

This is going to take some work.


	9. your name in my phone (RK, slash)

Heheh, I'm on a Kaito/Ryoga binge. What losers.

This originally had hearts but FFN can't support them, so... well, I added extra tildes.

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_oo9_

* * *

So Ryoga doesn't actually know when they officially became "boyfriends", and isn't quite sure that they actually even _are_, because they don't anything particularly boyfriend-y with each other, do they, and Ryoga certainly doesn't _like _Kaito_—_god, the thought of it makes him wanna throw up—so, really, it's more of... a title, than anything else. Actually, it's a bit of a joke: Kaito's the one who started it, when he just sort of casually referred to Ryoga as his ~boyfriend~ when someone asked him who he was out with on the phone once, and Ryoga rolled his eyes but then he started saying it, too, _I'm with my ~boyfriend~, Rio, who else_, and so somewhere down the road the line between their joke and actuality sort of blurred together and now—well, he _thinks _ they're dating? Or maybe they're pretending to? Whatever the case, Kaito is [KAITO-KUN] in his phone now, and he doesn't bother changing it, because, hey, it makes him snort whenever he sends or receives a message.

Which he does now, as he's lying on his back on the school's rooftop, wondering idly if he's hungry enough to eat his lunch early, in private. He's skipping class again, of course; it's boring in the classroom on a nice day like this (on any day at all), and he has a reputation to keep up, anyway, so he's staring up at the sky and debating with himself about the effort it'll take reaching toward his lunch versus how hungry he is when the text alert rumbles and he picks it up to see the message.

[KAITO-KUN]  
_Get to class, idiot._

Ryoga blinks up at his screen before scowling and sitting up, looking this way and that at the nearby rooftops, because, oh, sure, he's here, is he, and Ryoga didn't see him flying around but Kaito noticed him and felt the need to let him know with words that they both know aren't about to have any effect.

Ryoga stands, responds:

[SHARK-SAMA]  
_Don't tell me what to do._

Deeming that sufficient, he crosses his arms and leans against the water tower, still looking around to see where Kaito might be, but doing his best to look subtle about it, because, hey, he doesn't actually care that Kaito's watching him, or anything, it's just that he'd like to know where he is so he can get back with good quips of his own. He can already hear Kaito's dumb chuckle at his response, and that makes him mad enough to type on impulse:

[SHARK-SAMA]  
_Where are you?_

And the response comes quick enough after that, but it's not to his second message:

[KAITO-KUN]  
_I'll tell Yuma._

Which—hah, okay, sure you will, Kaito, like that'll make any difference on whether Ryoga will go to class or not, and why does he care so much about if Ryoga goes to class or not anyway—but then Ryoga thinks about it. Thinks about Yuma finding out that Ryoga's been on the rooftop instead of sitting next to Rio in English, thinks about Yuma bombarding him with stupid questions like _hey, Shark, you didn't go to class today?, are you sick, why don't you go home though, hey, Shark, does that mean we can't duel today, hey, wait, were you just texting Kaito all period again_—

—Dammit. That _asshole_.

Ryoga groans and picks up his bag, moves slowly to climb down the top and makes his way through the stairwell and back down toward the classroom, what's walking in fifteen minutes late, anyway, especially for someone like him, and isn't the teacher's berating better than Yuma's?

Just as he's about to walk in the door:

[KAITO-KUN]  
_Kattobingu~_

And Ryoga is going to _punch him _he swears to _god—_

[SHARK-SAMA]  
_You're always looking out for me~_


	10. our wish weaved (YKRA)

For the fic meme. Yuma, Kaito, Ryoga, and Astral stargazing on Yuma's roof.

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_o10_

* * *

There's something otherworldly about Yuma's rooftop - or, maybe, after all their alien adventures, it's something inherently earthly that he's never been able to appreciate before, a warmth, a comfort, a feeling of... well, home. It feels... natural, here, or as natural as anything ever feels, to sit and let down his guard and to look out at the city, the amusement park's lights dancing in the night sky and showering out the glittering stars, farther away. There's a sort of perpetual daylight in and around Heartland City; the sky's never quite black because there are always lights, but you can still see stars, and the farther out you get the easier it is to notice them, and Yuma's home, to him-to him-_to him_ and even to him, seems the perfect sight to stargaze.

"They're brighter up in the mountains," Yuma notes offhandedly, and it's in that soft murmur of his, the one that Kaito thinks must be the real Yuma (not that the other one isn't real, not that there's another Yuma at all, just that there are layers to everyone, he sees now, and even Yuma has to set down his guard sometime). Here's the Yuma that's hiding under the excitement and the silliness, the one that, at the end of the day, is tired after a day of handling his dumb friends, and aren't Kaito and Ryoga and Astral a handful; the Yuma that trusts but doesn't do so entirely blindly, because, Kaito's found, after Ryoga before him and Astral before that, Yuma's not as stupid as they'd like to think.

From where he's seated beside the weather vane, Kaito looks at Yuma, and Ryoga does the same from the other side, where he's lying with his head pillowed in his arms. Yuma's not looking at either of them; he's gazing out wistfully at the sky, like he's remembering something, and he smiles something private, points out a constellation, says, "...Hey. See that one?"

"The North Star?" asks Ryoga, and, well, yeah, of course they see it-it's the brightest in the sky, isn't it, and if he knows any it all, it'd be that one, wouldn't it?

"Yeah," says Yuma. "That one's my favorite. Because you can see it from anywhere!" He pauses, laughs a little, and then continues, slowly, "It's a little unoriginal, I guess, but whenever I was out with my Dad, I always looked for it first, and then everything else around it."

"Do you know any others?" asks Kaito, and it's out of genuine curiosity, not a question of Yuma's credibility to Kaito's area of (ameteur) expertise, and Yuma looks back at him, grinning.

"Nope! Dad tried to teach me but I can't recognize a single one! But they're still nice to look at, right?"

"Right," says Kaito, and Yuma turns back around, lies himself down back next to Ryoga.

They're silent for a while, the rhythm of the moment strung together with cicada song and night sounds and their even breathing until Ryoga blurts out, "We should-" before cutting himself off; but by then he's got the attention of the others, he's no choice but to go on, mumbling, "...go to the mountains sometime. Maybe... see if we can't make some constellations out or something. Together."

Yuma grins, his daily gusto making a reappearance in the face of adventure, in the face of the future. "Yeah! We should!"


	11. but then we had pizza (YKRA)

For the first ZEXAL ficathon, the prompt being "domestic bargeshipping", where bargeshipping is stolen + Astral.

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_o11_

* * *

It's the third night in a row that Yuma's suggested loudly they have something other than pizza, but it's the first night they've actually had the groceries necessary to make something resembling a meal, so Friday night is the evening when Kaito finds himself standing in the kitchen and chopping at the vegetables, alone save for a pesky spirit hovering over his shoulder and asking stupid questions like what do tomatoes taste like and why are there different kind of knives, and tomatoes taste like crap, Astral, the knives are for different substances, can you not hover so closely, because even if Astral's not tangible his metaphorical breathing over Kaito's shoulder is a disturbance.

Yuma and Ryoga, of course, are of no help tonight; Kaito suspected as much and planned accordingly, but there was a tiny part of him that hoped Yuma would be moderately helpful in the beginning, his excitement over some new activity motivating him-but, no, that didn't actually happen, and Yuma took to stealing something or other from Ryoga's desk (really, Ryoga, if you have a diary, at least keep it hidden) and reading it loudly while standing on the sofa and jumping out of the way every time Ryoga reached for it, flushing. Kaito catches some English words; apparently, Ryoga's trying to practice his English, and it lessens the chance of Yuma actually understand what he writes. But what Yuma doesn't know, Astral the ever-curious takes to asking the meaning of Kaito, and Kaito can only translate so much before he gets tired of all the noise piled up after an obnoxiously stressful day because of his sorry excuse for kin.

"Astral," says Kaito, massaging his temples when he's probed with a question as to what 'crush' means, because Ryoga can't possible means he wants to hurt Yuma, "if you give me ten minutes, I might be able to finish supper."

Astral can't actually eat supper, so he probably doesn't even care either way, but he shrugs and heads to watch Yuma and Ryoga instead, and maybe report back with a play-by-play for Kaito later. Kaito is glad for the quiet that follows; he can relax his ears for a second as he works purposefully in the kitchen, not a sound to disturb him and-

Not a sound to disturb him?

Kaito heads to the other room, with Ryoga and Yuma and the TV and the couch, to the source of the uncanny silence and the mayhem and where are they, what the heck, he thought he saw the light on in the bathroom so that accounts for someone, but-and then a spirit walks through him and it's cold and he shivers and before he can even register that it's Astral, Yuma jumps out and hugs him from behind, laughing. "Got you!"

"What-" What the heck kind of a prank is that? "Yuma, I'm trying to make us something to eat," Kaito says, and when Yuma lets go and steps back he frowns, smells at the air.

"...You sure?" he asks, and Kaito brings a hand to his forehead and they rush to the kitchen where Ryoga is standing staring uselessly at the stove, yeah, god dammit, it's burning, turn it off, idiot, and Kaito glares at Ryoga, glares at Astral, glares at Yuma, but Yuma only shrugs, suggests, "Pizza?"

Kaito snatches the phone, and orders extra bell peppers, tomato, and onion.


	12. to the morrow (KR)

An insert in the episode where they head off for Sargasso, right after Astral says they'll meet early in the morning.

* * *

_thieves of joy_

_o12_

* * *

Ryoga makes to leave a few seconds after Yuma does, but Kaito stops him by repeating loudly, "'Stay and watch the house'?", which is just as effective as reaching out and taking hold of Ryoga's shoulder would've been, and comes with the added bonus of Ryoga shaking with laughter at the memory of his own joke.

"Problem, Kaito?" he asks, turning to face him, and there's the frustrating grin from before, and Kaito doesn't get it—does Ryoga just not realize what the hell could happen? How serious this is?

"You're a child," Kaito says, because, yeah, actually, he is.

Ryoga snorts, and even with his grin, Kaito can tell he's being serious by the tone of his voice, when, hands in his pockets, Ryoga says, "Oh, please. Like we could've stopped him."

"We need to think this through," Kaito insists through gritted teeth, and he knows he sounds like a hardass, knows Yuma and Ryoga never think things through—and, really, does Kaito, when it's something emotional enough?—but someone needs to take up the mantle if even Astral's moving forward so quickly.

(And besides, hadn't Astral seemed a little off center, too?)

"There's no point," Ryoga says, shrugging. "We're leaving tomorrow to save Shingetsu whether it's a trap or not, and you know it." Then he pauses, adds, "Look, I know you're new to the whole 'being Yuma's friend' thing—"

Kaito scowls. "Save it."

Ryoga snorts, and turns to walk away again, but Kaito stops him a second time—

"Hey."

Ryoga looks over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Do you actually know anything about this kid? Shingetsu?"

A dark look crosses Ryoga's face; he bites his lip, shakes his head, and raises his hand in farewell. "See you tomorrow."


End file.
